Tantra - 9 Techniques - 1
Watch the Gap between two breaths. (1/112)
Understand
this: when you are not breathing you are dead; you are still, but dead.
But the moment is of such a short duration that you never observe it. O39
For
Tantra, each outgoing breath is a death and each new breath is a rebirth. Breath
coming in is rebirth; breath going out is death. O39
If
you can feel the gap, Shiva says, the beneficience, then nothing else is
needed. O39
Remember
this: do not go ahead, do not follow it like a shadow; be simultaneous with it.
O39
Buddha
tried particularly to use this method, so this method has become a Buddhist
method. In Buddhist terminology it is known as Anapanasati Yoga. And Buddha’s
enlightenment was based on this technique – only this.
Buddha
said, “Be aware of your breath as it is coming in, going out – coming in, going
out.” He never mentions the gap because there is no need. Buddha thought and
felt that if you become concerned with the gap, the gap between two breaths,
that concern may disturb your awareness. So he simply said, “Be aware. When the
breath is going in move with it, and when the breath is going out move with it.
Do simply this: going in, going out, with the breath.” He never says anything
about the latter part of the technique.
The
reason is that Buddha was talking with very ordinary men, and even that might
create a desire to attain the interval. That desire to attain the interval will
become a barrier to awareness, because if you are desiring to get to the
interval you will move ahead. Breath will be coming in, and you will move ahead
because you are interested in the gap which is going to be in the future. Buddha
never mentions it, so Buddha’s technique is just half.
But
the other half follows automatically. If you go on practicing breath
consciousness, breath awareness, suddenly, one day, without knowing, you will
come to the interval. Because as your awareness will become keen and deep and
intense, as your awareness will become bracketed – the whole world is bracketed
out; only your breath coming in or going out is your world, the whole arena for
your consciousness – suddenly you are bound to feel the gap in which there is no
breath.
Only
one technique and thousands and thousands have attained enlightenment through
it. But unfortunately, because the technique became associated with Buddha’s
name, Hindus have been trying to avoid it. O 40